Stroking The Ego: Did Gareth Evans Spoil The Source Material For His ‘Deathstroke’ Movie?

For anyone not currently in the know, Joe Manganiello’s version of the Deathstroke character lives on in the DCEU even though his appearance in the solo ‘Batman’ movie looks very unlikely at this point, mainly because it was recently announced that he would be headlining his own solo ‘Deathstroke’ film with Gareth Edwards as the director. Prior to that announcement, Edwards posted the following picture to his Instagram account, leading many people to start speculating on what exactly it could mean:

Of course, there are some who are saying it might simply be some of the ‘Deathstroke’ source material given to Edwards by DC comics so the man could start researching the character, but others are wondering if perhaps the ‘Gods of War’ story arc by Tony S. Daniel and Sandu Florea’s run of writing the character back in 2014-2016 might be what Edwards is basing the ‘Deathstroke’ solo film on.

It is not a terrible idea, as the story follows Deathstroke (aka Slade Wilson) on a quest for vengeance after the loss of his family, at a time when everyone thinks he is dead, allowing him to re-introduce himself to the world at large, which is a great starting point for a franchise. In the comics, he even manages to cross paths with some pretty big faces from DC including Batman, Amanda Waller and Harley Quinn, any of whom could appear in the movie. Plus, he always manages to cross paths with his father Odysseus in the comics, which would give some awesome backstory to the character.

Clearly, with the project just being announced, nothing is for sure yet aside from the director and the star, but the possibilities are there, and with the DCEU hopefully turning over a new leaf after ‘Wonder Woman’ (as long as ‘Justice League’ does not muck it all up) there is a lot of creative and new storytelling to be done, with characters that are much darker and deeper than the ones currently in the MCU. I still love the MCU, but shows like ‘Inhumans‘ and ‘Iron Fist‘ are dragging down the TV side, and on the movie side there are no denying things are a lot more lighthearted and lacking much in the way of real emotional depth since these characters have been around for so long and have these massive character shields, meaning we know they are never in any real danger of death – UNLESS they actually pull the trigger and kill heroes in ‘Avengers 3 and 4′.

What are your thoughts on the “Deathstroke’ standalone film? Do you want to see them adapt the ‘Gods of War’ storyline, or do something original? Share your opinions in the comments below!